Day: October 11, 2010

JOB: Two Curator Posts @ the British Museum

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Seen on Classicists (please send any responses to the people/institution mentioned in the post, not to rogueclassicism!)

1. Project Curator: Naukratis Project (Egyptian)

Fixed term; 23 months (to start in February 2011)

Greece & Rome

The British Museum is looking to recruit a Project Curator to research and publish Egyptian material from the site of Naukratis in the Nile Delta as part of the Museum’s Naukratis Project.  This 23 month fixed term post will have responsibility for researching the archaeology and history of Naukratis, for cataloguing and researching finds from the site, and for analysing its significance in Egyptian – Greek interaction. You will also have responsibility for publishing relevant analyses as part of the project’s final publications.

With a PhD or equivalent in Egyptology you will have previous experience working within a museum, university department or archaeological institute and will have expertise in the history and archaeology of the Nile Delta in the Late to Ptolemaic periods. The ability to devise a pragmatic programme of work and identify priorities is essential for this role, as is the ability to work without supervision as part of a wider team. Evidence of relevant published work is desirable for this role.

For further information or a full application pack, please visit www.britishmuseum.org/jobs or email bm AT penna.com

Closing date; 12 noon, Thursday 29 October 2010

2. Project Curator: Naukratis Project (Greek)

Fixed term; 1 year (to start in February 2011)

Greece & Roman

The British Museum is looking to recruit a Project Curator to research and publish Greek and related material from the site of Naukratis in the Nile Delta as part of the Museum’s Naukratis Project.  This one year fixed term post will be responsible for researching the archaeology and history of Naukratis, for cataloguing and researching finds from the site, and for analysing its significance in Greek – Egyptian interaction. You will also have responsibility for publishing relevant analyses as part of the project’s final publications.

With a PhD or equivalent in Classical Archaeology or Egyptology you will possess knowledge of the material culture of Archaic to Hellenistic Greece, the Greek presence in Egypt, and the history and archaeology of the Nile Delta in the Late to Ptolemaic periods. The ability to devise a pragmatic programme of work and identify priorities is essential to this role as is the ability to work without supervision as part of a wider team. Evidence of relevant published work is desirable for this role.

For further information or a full application pack, please visit www.britishmuseum.org/jobs or email bm AT penna.com quoting reference 77186.

Closing date; 12 noon, Thursday 29 October 2010

CFP: Imagining Europe (Grad Conference)

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Seen on Classicists (please send any responses to the people/institution mentioned in the post, not to rogueclassicism!):

IMAGINING EUROPE – PERSPECTIVES, PERCEPTIONS AND REPRESENTATIONS FROM
ANTIQUITY TO THE PRESENT

REMINDER: CALL FOR PAPERS – LUICD Graduate Conference 2011

Leiden University Institute for Cultural Disciplines
27 and 28 January 2011

Confirmed keynote speakers:

Professor Edith Hall, Royal Holloway, University of London
Professor Jonathan Israel, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
University

THE CONFERENCE

‘Qui parle Europe a tort. Notion géographique’. Otto von Bismarck’s
elliptic remark, scribbled in the margin of a letter from Alexander
Gorchakov in 1876, would go on to become one of the most often-quoted
statements about Europe. But was Bismarck right? Is Europe nothing but a
geographical notion? Even the briefest glance at history shows that more
often than not perceptions and definitions of Europe go beyond the mere
geographical demarcation of a continent. In 1919, for instance, Paul
Valéry imagined Europe as a living creature, with ‘a consciousness
acquired through centuries of bearable calamities, by thousands of men of
the first rank, from innumerable geographical, ethnic and historical
coincidences’. Of course this is only one of a multitude of different
representations. Europe has always signified different things to different
people in different places – inside Europe as well as outside. Europe
meant, for instance, something different to Voltaire, l’aubergiste
d’Europe, at Ferney in the 1760s than to Athanasius Kircher in Rome a
century earlier or to Barack Obama in Washington today.

This conference explores the different ways in which Europe has been
imagined and represented, from inside as well as outside Europe and from
classical antiquity to the present day. This wide scope reflects the
historical range of the LUICD’s three research programmes (Classics and
Classical Civilization, Medieval and Early Modern Studies and Modern and
Contemporary Studies) as well as the intercontinental focus of many of the
institute’s research projects. The conference aims to present a diachronic
perspective of some of the many images of Europe, with particular
attention to the historical, cultural and economic contexts in which these
images were created and the media and genres in which they have been
presented.

Although the emphasis of the conference lies on different and changing
perspectives, perceptions and representations, it also wants to explore
the notion of similarity – are there any aspects that keep recurring in
the different visions, aspects that might even be said to be intrinsically
European?

The conference aims to provide a platform for graduate students in the
humanities, from Leiden as well as other universities in the Netherlands
and abroad, to present and exchange their ideas in an international and
interdisciplinary environment. The organising committee is honoured that
Professor Jonathan Israel and Professor Edith Hall have accepted our
invitation to act as keynote speakers and participate in discussions
during the conference.

PROPOSALS

The LUICD Graduate Conference aims to reflect the institute’s
interdisciplinary and international character and as such welcomes
proposals from graduate students from all disciplines within the
humanities, from universities from the Netherlands as well as abroad. The
conference wants to present a variety of different perspectives on Europe
(from within as well as outside the European continent) and those working
in fields related to other continents are particularly encouraged to
submit a proposal.

Subjects may include historical events, processes and discourses, textual
and/or visual representations, literary or art canons, colonial and post-
colonial relations, philosophical developments and political issues.
Questions that could be raised include: how did (and do) oppositions such
as barbarism versus civilization, Christianity versus paganism or old
versus new worlds relate to the conceptualization of Europe? What role
does (perceived) cultural superiority play in these oppositions? What
ideas might be regarded as predecessors of or alternatives to the concept
of Europe? In what ways did (and do) forms of universalism and regionalism
compete with identity formation on a continental level? How have
individual artists represented Europe? How do different (literary) genres,
such as travel literature, historiography or letters, construct a
particular image of Europe or Europe’s relations with other cultures? Is
it possible for art collections to imagine Europe or to question existing
perceptions of Europe? How do migrant literature and cinema reflect the
changing identity of Europe today?

Please send your proposal (max. 300 words) for a 20-minute paper to
C.Maas AT hum.leidenuniv.nl .  The deadline for the proposals is 1 November
2010 – you will be notified whether or not your proposal has been selected
before 15 November 2010.

After the conference, the proceedings will be published either on-line or
in book form. More information on this will follow in due course.

A conference website ( http://hum.leiden.edu/icd/imagining-europe ), with
more information about the programme, speakers, accommodation and other
conference matters, will be launched later this autumn, but if you have
any questions regarding the conference and/or the proposal, please do not
hesitate to contact us at the above e-mail address.

The organizing committee:

Drs. Thera Giezen
Drs. Jacqueline Hylkema
Drs. Coen Maas

CONF: Association for the Study and Preservation of Roman Mosaics Symposium

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King's College London
Image via Wikipedia

Seen on Classicists (please send any responses to the people/institution mentioned in the post, not to rogueclassicism!):

The Association for the Study and Preservation of Roman Mosaics (ASPROM)
will be holding its winter symposium at King’s College London on Saturday 4
December, 2-5.30 pm. All are welcome to attend (see below for booking info).

Programme:

Ellen Swift – Non-figurative mosaics in domestic houses: context and function

Jeffery Leigh – Roman gold glass tesserae in Britain: the Southwick Three
and Marlipins Four

Stephen Cosh & David Neal – Completing the Corpus: the final volume and a
review of the project

Update on British mosaics

Venue: King’s College London, Strand Campus, King’s Building K2.31

Booking fee: £10 members, £8 student members, £15 non-members
Sandwich lunch available beforehand, £5
Full details & booking form at http://www.asprom.org/news/symposium63.html.
Contact: Dr Will Wootton, King’s College London (will.wootton  AT kcl.ac.uk).

New Zealand Earthquake Update and an Appeal

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Peter Jones posted this on the Classicists list (for Graham Zanker):

The recent earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand struck at 0435 on
Saturday, 4th September. The James Logie Memorial Collection of Classical
Antiquities, housed in the Department of Classics of the University of
Canterbury and famous for its black and red-figure vases, was hard hit
indeed.

A visit to the Collection at 1100, when engineers permitted entry, revealed
that only about 30% of the ceramic pieces had survived the quake unharmed or
lightly chipped, and that 20% of the holdings are more or less easily
reparable. The remaining 50% are severely damaged, but can be repaired.

Every major or heavy item was immediately removed, packed and stabilised,
and put on the floor under large wooden tables because we expected an
aftershock (in fact, there have been at least fifteen over 5 on the Richter
scale since): getting them out of the building was impossible because all
lifts were out of action.

In the intervening period, all items and fragments have been packaged and
stored as securely as possible, and the insurers have formed their
assessment. It is clear that further funding will required for the work of
conservation and for the restoration of the Collection to its former stature
as one of the most distinguished collections in the Southern Hemisphere. (A
detailed description of the Collection’s holdings can be found in Professor
J.R. Green’s *Catalogue of the James Logie Memorial Collection of Classical
Antiquities*, published by the Canterbury University Press last December.)

Generous donations have already been received, and a fund for the
conservation of the Collection has been put in place for any further gifts.
Donations and inquiries should be addressed to Shelagh Murray of the
University of Canterbury Foundation: shelagh.murray AT canterbury.ac.nz.

This Day in Ancient History: ante diem v idus octobres

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ante diem v idus octobres

  • Meditrinalia — a somewhat obscure festival in terms of origins which involved tasting old wine and new wine, apparently with the goal of being cured of diseases old and new.
  • ludi Augustales scaenici (day 7 — from 11-19 A.D. and post 23 A.D.)
  • 304 A.D. — martyrdom of Tharacus